It’s a cliché that Latin American music is filled with passion – but Ana Carla Maza is evidence that sometimes there’s no smoke without fire.
Despite appearing on her own with just a cello for company, Maza fills the stage with personality and the glittering Norfolk and Norwich Festival Spiegeltent with her music.
Her voice is rich and round, and she is in complete mastery of the cello. There’s not much room for slow classical numbers in this set but when the tempo lulls it’s clear that is comfortably within her skillset. Other times we get pacey salsa numbers with her bow gliding over the strings, or it being used more aggressively for a rawer sound. In places she plays the cello almost like a guitar. Her hand taps and rattles over it treating it like a drum, creating her own personal percussion section.
There is a lot of improvisation, as she constantly fizzes with noises and nonsense sounds, and bags of audience call and response – perhaps a little too much. It’s good to be involved, but it’s not the audience we came to see perform.
Throughout her enthusiasm is infectious, and the wooden floor of the Spiegeltent vibrated with toe tapping and foot stomping at her command. It wasn’t really a surprise when in the final number she invited the audience to join her on stage.
Jazz needs a little discipline to truly be great and the arrangements and approach here were a bit too free to qualify, but it was certainly a big bag of fun.
- Ana Carla Maza was at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival Spiegeltent on Thursday 21 May 2026.
